Sachi was playing at the restaurant one evening when the two young surfers came in for a meal. It was the sixth day since they had arrived in Hanalei. They were thoroughly tanned, and they seemed to have a sturdier look about them now as well.

"Hey, you play the piano!" the stocky one exclaimed.

"And you're good, too - a real pro," chimed in the tall one.

"I do it for fun," she said.

"Know any songs by the B'z?"

"No J-pop for me, thanks!" Sachi said. "But wait a minute, I thought you guys were broke. Can you afford to eat in a place like this?"

"Sure, I got my Diners Card!" the tall one announced.

"Yes, for emergencies ..."

"Oh, I'm not worried. My old man was right, though. Use it once and it becomes a habit."

"True, so now you can take it easy," Sachi said.

"We were thinking we ought to buy you dinner," the stocky boy said.

"To thank you. You helped us a lot. And we're goin' home the day after tomorrow."

"Right," said the tall one. "How about now? We can order wine, too. Our treat!"

"I've already had my dinner," Sachi said, lifting her glass of red wine. "And this was on the house. I'll accept your thanks, though. I appreciate the thought."

Just then a large white man approached their table and stood near Sachi with a glass of whisky in his hand. He was around 40 and wore his hair short. His arms were like slender telephone poles, and one bore a large dragon tattoo above the letters "USMC". Judging from its fading colours, the tattoo had been applied some years before.

"Hey, little lady, I like your piano playing," he said.

Sachi glanced up at him and said, "Thanks."

"You Japanese?"

"Sure am."

"I was in Japan once. A long time ago. Stationed two years in Iwakuni. A long time ago."

"Well, what do you know? I was in Chicago once for two years. A long time ago. That makes us even."

The man thought about this for a moment, seemed to decide that she was joking, and smiled.

"I don't work here, you know," she said. "And right now I'm having a conversation with these two boys. See that skinny gentleman with the thinning hair sitting at the piano? He's the pianist here. Maybe you ought to give your request to him. And don't forget to leave him a tip."

The man shook his head. "That fruitcake can't play anything but wishy-washy queer stuff. I wanna hear you play - something snappy. There's 10 bucks in it for you."

"I wouldn't do it for 500."

"So that's the way it is, huh?" the man said.

"Yes, that's the way it is," Sachi said.

"Tell me something, then, will you? Why aren't you Japanese willing to fight to protect your own country? Why do we have to drag our asses to Iwakuni to keep you guys safe?"

"And because of that I'm supposed to shut up and play?"

"You got it," the man said. He glanced across the table at the two boys. "And lookit you two - a coupla Jap surf bums. Come all the way to Hawaii - for what? In Iraq, we -"

"Let me ask you a question," Sachi interjected. "Something I've been wondering about ever since you came over here."

"Sure. Ask away."

Twisting her neck, Sachi looked straight up at the man. "I've been wondering this whole time," she said, "how somebody gets to be like you. Were you born that way, or did something terrible happen to make you the way you are? Which do you think it is?"

The man gave this a moment's thought and then slammed his whisky glass down on the table. "Look, lady -"

The owner of the restaurant heard the man's raised voice and hurried over. He was a small man, but he took the ex-marine's thick arm and led him away. They were friends apparently, and the ex-marine offered no resistance other than a parting shot or two.

The owner came back shortly afterwards and apologised to Sachi.

"He's usually not a bad guy, but liquor changes him. Don't worry, I'll set him straight. Meanwhile, let me buy you something. Forget this ever happened."

"It's just as well," Sachi said. "Never mind. Have you boys had a good time here in Hanalei? Surfing your brains out, I suppose."

"Faaantastic!" said the stocky boy.

"Just super," said the tall one. "It changed my life. No kiddin'."

"That's wonderful," Sachi said. "Get all the fun you can out of life while you're still able. They'll serve you the bill soon enough."

"No problem," said the tall boy. "I've got my card."

"That's the way," Sachi said, shaking her head. "Nice and easy."

Then the stocky boy said, "I've been meaning to ask you something, if you don't mind."

"About what?"

"I was just wondering if you had ever seen the one-legged Japanese surfer."

"One-legged Japanese surfer?" Sachi looked straight at him with narrowed eyes. "No, I never have."

"We saw him twice. He was on the beach, staring at us. He had a red Dick Brewer surfboard, and his leg was gone from here down." The stocky boy drew a line with his finger a few inches above his knee. "As if it was chopped off. He was gone when we came out of the water. Just disappeared. We wanted to talk to him, so we tried hard to find him, but he wasn't anywhere. I reckon he must have been about our age."

"Which leg was gone? The right one or the left one?" Sachi asked.

The stocky boy thought for a moment and said, "I'm pretty sure it was the right one. Right?"

"Yes, definitely. The right one," the tall boy said.

"Hmm," Sachi said and moistened her mouth with a sip of wine. She could hear the sharp, hard beating of her heart. "You're sure he was Japanese? Not Japanese-American?"

"No way," the tall boy said. "You can tell the difference right away. No, this guy was a surfer from Japan. Like us."

Sachi bit hard into her lower lip, and stared at them for some moments. Then, her voice dry, she said, "Strange, though. This is such a small town, you couldn't miss seeing somebody like that even if you wanted to: a one-legged Japanese surfer."

"Right," said the stocky boy. "I know it's strange. A guy like that'd stick out like a sore thumb. But he was there, I'm sure of it. We both saw him."

The tall boy looked at Sachi and said, "You're always sitting there on the beach, right? He was standing there on one leg, a little way away from where you always sit. And he was looking right at us, sort of as if leaning against a tree trunk. He was under that clump of iron trees on the other side of the picnic tables."

Sachi took a silent swallow of her wine.

The stocky boy went on: "I wonder how he can stand on his surfboard with one leg? It's tough enough with two."

Every day after that, from morning to evening, Sachi walked back and forth the full length of Hanalei's long beach, but there was never any sign of the one-legged surfer. She asked the local surfers, "Have you seen a one-legged Japanese surfer?" but they all gave her strange looks and shook their heads. A one-legged Japanese surfer? Never seen such a thing. If I had, I'd be sure to remember. He'd stand out. But how can anybody surf with one leg?

The night before she went back to Japan, Sachi finished packing and got into bed. The cries of the geckos mingled with the sound of the surf. Before long, she realised that her pillow was damp: she was crying. Why can't I see him? she wondered. Why did he appear to those two surfers - who were nothing to him - and not to me? It was so unfair! She summoned up the image of her son's corpse in the morgue. If only it were possible, she would shake his shoulder until he woke up, and she would shout at him - Tell me why! How could you do such a thing?

Sachi buried her face in her damp pillow for a long time, muffling her sobs. Am I simply not qualified to see him? she asked herself, but she did not know the answer to her own question. All she knew for sure was that, whatever else she might do, she had to accept this island. As that gentle-spoken Japanese-American police officer had suggested to her, she had to accept the things on this island as they were. As they were: fair or unfair, qualified or unqualified, it didn't matter. Sachi woke up the next morning as a healthy middle-aged woman. She loaded her suitcase into the back seat of her Dodge and left Hanalei Bay.

She had been back in Japan for some eight months when she bumped into the stocky boy in Tokyo. Taking refuge from the rain, she was drinking a cup of coffee in a Starbucks near the Roppongi subway station. He was sitting at a nearby table. He was nattily dressed, in a well-pressed Ralph Lauren shirt and new chinos, and he was with a petite, pleasant-featured girl.

"What a coincidence!" he exclaimed as he approached her table with a big smile.

"How've you been?" she asked. "Look how short your hair is!"

"Well, I'm just about to graduate from college," he said.

"I don't believe it! You?"

"Uh-huh. I've got at least that much under control," he said, slipping into the chair across from her.

"Have you given up surfing?"

"I do some on weekends once in a while, but not much longer: it's hiring season now."

"How about Beanpole?"

"Oh, he's got it easy. No job-hunting worries for him. His father's got a big Western pastry shop in Akasaka, says they'll buy him a BMW if he takes over the business. He's so lucky!"

Sachi glanced outside. The passing summer shower had turned the streets black. Traffic was at a standstill, and an impatient taxi driver was honking his horn.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Sachi asked.

"Uh-huh ... I guess. I'm workin' on it," he said, scratching his head.

"She's cute. Too cute for you. Probably not giving you what you want."

His eyes went up to the ceiling. "Whoa! I see you still say exactly what you think. You're right, though. Got any good advice for me? To make things happen, I mean ..."

"There are only three ways to get along with a girl: one, shut up and listen to what she has to say; two, tell her you like what she's wearing; and three, treat her to really good food. Easy, eh? If you do all that and still don't get the results you want, better give up."

"Sounds good: simple and practical. Mind if I write it down in my notebook?"

"Of course not. But you mean to say you can't remember that much?"

"No, I'm like a chicken: three steps, and my mind's a blank. So I write everything down. I heard Einstein used to do that."

"I'll give it my best shot," he said, and stood up to go back to his own table. After a moment's thought, he held out his hand. "You, too," he said.

"Give it your best shot."

Sachi took his hand. "I'm glad the sharks didn't eat you in Hanalei Bay," she said.

"You mean, there are sharks there? Seriously?"

"Uh-huh," she said. "Seriously."

Sachi sits at the keyboard every night, moving her fingers almost automatically, and thinking of nothing else. Only the sounds of the piano pass through her mind - in one door and out of the other. When she is not playing, she thinks about the three weeks she spends in Hanalei at the end of autumn. She thinks about the sound of the incoming waves and the sighing of the iron trees. The clouds carried along by the trade winds, the albatrosses sailing across the sky, their huge wings spread wide. And she thinks about what surely must await her there. That is all there is for her to think about now. Hanalei Bay.